


Colors We Can't See

by bloviate



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Season 4 Spoilers, Soulmates AU, season 4 ish general timeline, you can't see your soulmates eye color until you meet them, you only age when you're with your soulmate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-19 13:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12411195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloviate/pseuds/bloviate
Summary: Lotor never imagined he had a soulmate. And he certainly never thought it would be her.Pidge was careful. She never would have thought that it would happen like this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Colors We Can’t See**

* * *

 

He never thought he had one.

A soulmate.

He thought there was truly no one out there, meant for him in the way that Honerva and Zarkon had been meant for each other.

He had been content with that notion. He would look at the witch and his father, would see them and see a fate he’d mercifully avoided. They had driven each other past the brink of insanity, all out of love for the other. Having no soulmate at all was certainly a lucky break. Lotor couldn’t afford that sort of madness; it didn’t factor into any of his plans.

He could never puzzle out why he didn’t age, or why one specific color never seemed to show up in his vision. Often, he wondered if it wasn’t due to some experiment the witch had performed on him as a child; she’d managed to stop herself and Zarkon from aging, despite them being constantly together for countless millennia. But that would speak of a fondness for him that Haggar did not possess.

In the end, thoughts of aging, of soulmates, and of that color he’d never know weren’t frequent in Lotor’s mind. He had bigger things to think about, plans to orchestrate and flesh out. Why would he waste his time thinking about the cruel, empty pit inside his chest that insisted something was missing?

 

* * *

 

Pidge had better things to think about than soulmates. She was young, and it would often take decades or more for most people to find their soulmates, if they even had one. She knew she had one, and would dream about the color ‘blue’ in the few and far between moments that she thought of soulmates at all. But that was something she would worry about in the future, when she had her family back, when the war was over, and the universe no longer needed Voltron.

So what if Lance and Hunk lauded the wonders of having a soulmate in between robeast battles? Who cared if Allura and Keith yelled at each other as much as they kissed each other? Not Pidge. If anything, having a soulmate during a war made things more difficult and traumatic. Shiro was testament to that fact, willing to drop everything almost more than Pidge had been when she’d discovered Matt’s picture in the Beta-Traz database.

Voltron needed the green lion. Voltron needed Pidge. And Pidge did not need a soulmate to be the green lion, therefore finding hers was not of any importance.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t find her soulmate; they found each other.

 

* * *

 

The paladins had taken a trip back to the space mall so that Coran and Allura could talk logistics with the groups that had agreed to join the Coalition. Pidge had decided to take the opportunity to check out some of the tech shops she’d dismissed during her first visit. Maybe she would come across something that would help her solve the riddle that was cloaking Voltron without having access to a second set of capable hands, or maybe she would just find something to tinker around with.

She was reading through the specs of a communications device—she had a better device, but this one had a specific part that maybe she could work in to her own model to make it more suitable for long-range communications—when he, quite literally, ran into her.

With a shout, Pidge fell to the ground in a whorl of flailing limbs—she may be a paladin of Voltron, but she was no less clumsy than she’d been back in her Garrison days. She’d looked up, ready to tell off whoever had run her down without so much as a pardon, when their eyes met.

Pidge was rarely speechless, but when color started to bleed from the man’s irises into the world around her, staining her vision with the wonder that was blue, Pidge could only let her mouth hang open in shock.

Her shock morphed into horror when her thoughts caught up with her eyes—because she recognized his face immediately. She’d only see him in pictures before, but Allura and Coran had programmed her to recognize his face.

Prince Lotor.

He reached down, maybe to help her up, maybe to grab her and throw her into the communicator display. She didn’t know if he recognized her face, since it wasn’t plastered everywhere in the way that his was, but she couldn’t take the chance that he knew who she was.

She stood up and ran.

Voltron needed the green lion, and Pidge couldn’t be the green lion if her soulmate killed her first.

Lotor didn’t chase after her.

 

* * *

 

Of course.

Of course this was what amber looked like.

It was the most beautiful, dazzling color Lotor had ever encountered. Who knew orange would play so well with brown, flecks of gold sparkling and highlighting the richness of her eyes, the curiosity and surprise.

And he had run right into her, hasty as he had been to meet with his source, the source that claimed the paladins of Voltron would be visiting the mall. If he could find one, capture one, his plans would run just _that_ much more smoothly. But his source had never shown up, and he needed to leave before someone recognized him.

How fitting that she show up, right at that moment. Just in time to blow up all the plans he had made, all the theories he’d come up with to explain why he never aged and watch as they all crumbled into dust. His heart crumbled, too, as amber leaked into his world and carved a place for itself in his soul.

How fitting it was, too, that she would recognize him at once and flee. She recognized him on sight, but it took him days to track her down with only video camera footage from the mall and a color to go from. Discovering who she was rent another tear in the fabric of Lotor’s reality.

But really, who else could she have been?

Amber worked so well with green.


	2. Chapter 2

Pidge was careful.

None of her friends knew she’d met her soulmate, none knew she’d seen blue in Lotor’s eyes. Not even Lance, who had caught her swiping through pictures in the castle’s database of everything featuring the color blue.

He’d looked at her with a sad smile, said “You know Pidge, as smart as you are, just looking at pictures with blue in them aren’t going to suddenly make you see the color.”

Pidge had shrugged and dismissed the photos, not yet ready to lie about being able to see blue.

“You don’t wanna force it anyway,” Lance had continued. “I mean, then you’d have no way of knowing who your soulmate is!”

_Yeah_ , Pidge had thought. _Wouldn’t want that_.

 

* * *

 

She was very careful, though, not to remark over how pretty the sapphire in Allura’s eyes were, how the pink really highlighted the lighter cerulean and periwinkle depths. She didn’t say anything about the gorgeous navy oceans, or lighter aquamarine gulfs that she flew over in her down time, just to catch glimpses of the colors that really couldn’t compare to how impossibly blue his eyes had been.

Later, it even became easier to forget that she was lying to herself and to her teammates every moment she opened her eyes. When she’d reunited with Matt, to forget she was plus on color in her life. She was so excited to show him everything she’d done in the past years they’d been apart, and Matt was just as enthusiastic to be reunited with his sister and his soulmate.

Everything was going fine. Every day brought her closer to just forgetting all together that Prince Lotor existed—except for the huge wrench he threw in all that Voltron stood for. He was just a faceless, nameless, enemy.

Until he decided to shatter her carefully constructed plans with one transmission.

“Attention Paladins of Voltron and rebel fighters. I know we have had our differences in the past, but…I think it is time that we had a discussion.”

 

* * *

 

“I don’t think we should trust him,” Pidge interjected immediately after Princess Allura ended the transmission. She had invited Prince Lotor on board, after ascertaining that he would bring no weapons and recognized that they would have to keep him handcuffed.

“Are you crazy?! Of course we shouldn’t! It’s freaking _Lotor_ we’re talking about here!” Lance exclaimed, swerving in front of Pidge’s lion as they made to dock the lions in the hangar.

“Keep in mind that he has just saved all of our lives,” Allura replied. “And he will be one, surrounded by six paladins of Voltron, not to mention several rebel leaders.”

“Are you sure your judgement isn’t clouded since he just saved Keith?” Pidge asked, trying to keep her volume steady, trying to keep the desperation from her voice.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Allura dismissed, voice terse. “The benefits outweigh the risks. Hunk, Lance, escort his ship into the hangar. Shiro, you go in first and be ready to engage. Pidge and I will take up the rear. Pidge, stay in your lion until Shiro has ensured that Prince Lotor is unarmed and restrained.”

“I’ll stay in my lion, then head to the control room to monitor the negotiations, make sure he doesn’t try something.”

“Show Laisley to the control room so she can monitor,” Allura countered. “We will need everyone present for this.”

 

* * *

 

Lotor watched with narrowed eyes as his former enemies organized before him. The rebels were settling near the end of the table, Blade of Marmora flanking him on either side. At the head of the table, Voltron sat unified. They wore paladin armor, but there was something wrong—blue, yellow, and black sat together. At the head was a paladin wearing pink armor—was this the red paladin? There was, however, no green paladin.

She had yet to show.

Lotor was getting restless. He knew she hadn’t died—after initializing their connection, he would have at least felt _something_ if she had perished. But could she have been injured? Had he not showed up in time to save her from the worst of the attacks? Was she, at this very moment, dying while just out of his reach?

No. Surely not. The other paladins would be frantic, trying to save her, not sitting here talking quietly amongst themselves.

Lotor cleared his throat—the room silenced. A small smirk graced Lotor’s lips. “If she’s worried I will attempt to seduce her to my side, I can quite easily clear the air. I meant what I said; I believe that joining my forces with that of Voltron will be beneficial to both our causes, and I have no desire to separate her from the green lion. The green paladin can come on out and play.”

“What the fuck did you just say about my sister?” One of the rebels demanded, pushing his chair back as he stood. Lotor catalogued his features, taking note of his amber eyes, hair that was a few shade’s lighter than the green paladin’s, a similar jaw line. Brother and sister.

A protective sibling. Four paladins, all glaring at him with distaste and confusion. He must make a calculated risk, then. “I said she need not fear me. I find myself feeling…hollow, without her. It is my hope that in joining our forces, perhaps she will feel no more need to run from our bond.” It was true—and it was just enough to earn their sympathy without compromising his veneer of strength.

The room was silent. Surely he had not miscalculated his admission? Yet there was something fundamental that he was not grasping, something that he had failed to consider.

The pink paladin was the first to speak, and she did so haltingly, with a disturbed air about her. “Are you acquainted with Pidge?”

_Pidge_. He took in his soulmate’s name like a drop of water in a drought. Then her words hit him, and he felt—he felt too many things at once.

“Has she not informed you?” A smile curled on his lips, despite the inner turmoil he was going through. His body knew how to react to best suit his situation, even when his mind was floundering. “Dear Pidge and I are soulmates.”

Half the room dissolved into shouting and chaos, while the other half sat back, flabbergasted.

The consensus seemed to be that no, it could not possibly be true. Lotor, a half-Galran, half-Altean Prince, many thousands of years old, couldn’t be the young human’s soulmate. She was so good, and he was the heir to the Galra empire. How could it even be possible?

Anger and jealousy warred within Lotor. He had been so desperate to know her, to find her, had even decided to give up his cause partially because of her. And she had not even deemed him worthy to mention to her friends, to her family? Was she so ashamed of him, of their bond, that she didn’t even consider the tactical advantage to having him at her beck and call?

Not that he considered himself to be subject to the whims of the green paladin. But if that were the case, perhaps she would at least let him see her, once more? Would she grace him with her presence, so he could look into the most glorious eyes in the universe, in person instead of on a screen?

Lotor dismissed the thought.

Lotor opened his mouth, and the room hushed in an instant. “Perhaps calling upon Pidge,” he _relished_ the sound of her name as it fell from his lips, “would be wise? She is, after all, the only one you can trust to confirm my declaration.”

It wasn’t just his attempt to bring her closer. It wasn’t.

“It’s true.”

The blood in Lotor’s veins sang. He craned his neck inelegantly, trying to arch so that he could see her. He heard her footsteps, and finally she came into his vision.

And what a vision she was.

When their eyes met for only the second time, Lotor felt a weight lifting from his chest. He felt that same hollow space inside him fill, colored amber with desire. He looked into her eyes, wondering what he would find.

In her eyes, he found redemption. He found trust, and perhaps even love.

She looked at him with such vitriol, but he could see the future—their future, neat and tidy before him.

Staring into her brilliant eyes, he was a goner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the wonderful comments! It made my day whenever I read what you guys had to say, and it even inspired me to write a follow-up.
> 
> I'm not actually sure if this will be the last addition to this, since I really am trying to focus on my in-progress stories. So consider this the end for now, but if I think of something else I'll probably end up adding it to this anyways. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading and commenting!!


End file.
